Sunday, March 14, 2010

I wove a scarf yesterday, and it came out great, but that show and tell post is going to have to wait, because my heart is bursting with pride. Emma wove all by herself on the floor loom yesterday.

(Please don't mind the fuzzy hat-hair braids. She was playing outside all day. I really do brush my daughter's hair!)

She was watching me weave, and was incredibly intent and focused. When I was hemstitching the end of the scarf, she asked if she could do some weaving too.

Of course I said yes, and immediately after finishing and cutting my scarf off the loom, I measured a warp for her and put it on the loom. It's dark green 3/2 perle cotton, sleyed at 8 epi, and I told her she could use whatever weft she wanted, because it's her weaving.

I found her a shorter chair so she could reach the treadles and off she went. The first two wefts were a scratchy rust nylon and a scratchy purple wool. She had lots of fun with those, but asked me for a softer yarn because she didn't want her scarf to be scratchy. So we decided on a white superwash merino. There's an object lesson in fiber choice for you.

She's doing beautifully, and has about 6 inches of the white woven now. Her attention span is about half an hour (pretty good for six year old, I think), and her selvedges are great!